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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850855">the end of the world (and all that comes after)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zannolin/pseuds/Zannolin'>Zannolin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Spoilers for MAG 160, canon said confirmed tragedy and I said confirmed fix it bitch, copious amounts of prose, not tagging all the others because they're just mentioned and I don't wanna get y'alls hopes up, spoilers for everything up til like the last couple eps honestly but it's mostly s4 finale yknow, when I write a sasha centric fic it will be tagged as such I swear to you</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:08:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zannolin/pseuds/Zannolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ends, and then it doesn’t, and what can come after the end of the world?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the end of the world (and all that comes after)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I fell down the rabbit hole of tma and of course it would be a horror tragedy that snares my imagination and muse, so please have copious amounts of jonmartin prose because I wanted to give them the ending they deserve. confirmed tragic ending, I hear you say? *cranks up my classical music even louder* not in my house!!</p><p>Might fuck around and work on some Sasha or Gerry centric fic next, cuz I'm a sucker for the tragedies. Come yell at me if you enjoy, comments make my life brighter!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world ends. The world ends, and then it doesn’t.</p><p>It starts like this:</p><p>Daisy is lost, and Basira is angry, and Melanie has left, and Georgie won’t talk. Tim is dead, and Sasha is dead, and Gerry is dead, and Gertrude is dead, and Jon does not like to think about that.</p><p>Martin was gone, but Jon brought him back, dove into the mist and the cold and the muffled roar of the waves pounding against a rocky, utterly lifeless shore, ran after him like his life depended on it (because maybe it did, maybe it still does, maybe it always has and he simply didn’t notice) and pulled him back into warmth and companionship with an outstretched hand.</p><p>He doesn’t like to think about the Lonely, how it seeps into your bones and lulls you to complacency, how it whispers that <em>you’ve never been enough, will never be enough, that the world is simply better off without you,</em> and of course you’ve always known this, always. You’re better off alone. He doesn’t like the mist or the static or the stark, horrid emptiness. Jonathan Sims is perfectly happy to be alone, but to feel Lonely? That is something he never wants to be again.</p><p>They make it out, and Jon repeats it to himself like a mantra, over and over again. He couldn’t save Sasha, couldn’t save Tim, or Daisy, or find a way to keep Melanie’s sight intact and Georgie’s friendship alive, but he <em>saved Martin</em> and that is what matters in this moment. He repeats it to himself as he allows himself to take Martin’s face in trembling hands and press their foreheads together, stand on his tip toes next to Martin’s reassuring height, feel their breaths mingle and know that this is real, this is true, this is something he can have.</p><p>He is allowed to be happy.</p><p>
  <em>He is allowed to be happy.</em>
</p><p>And he is. (Until he isn’t.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They run away to Scotland, wander the sun-drenched fields and talk to the cows, hold hands and pretend that nothing happened, that Jon isn’t littered with scars and Martin doesn’t still lose himself in static on the bad days. They huddle together at night and cling to each other’s warmth to ward away the terrors that lurk in corners of their eyes, in the deepest of the shadows, scratching at the door to be let in.</p><p>And they are okay.</p><p>(A funny word, okay. It’s odd, Jon muses, that it can say so little and yet hide so much, four letters shining brightly as if to conceal a backdrop of tangled, dripping lies. But they are okay, even though they are not.)</p><p>They are okay, and everything is okay, until they <em>aren’t</em> and it <em>isn’t</em> and everything has come crashing and crumbling down like a Jenga tower with <em>just</em> the wrong block tugged away. The world falls to pieces, fragmented and twisted into an endless nightmare, a horrific playground for each of the Fears and their denizens. (And over it all, the Eye, the Ceaseless Watcher, drinking it in with lidless, sickening delight. Where once was the life-giving sun, now there is only the itching and burning of the Watcher’s gaze on the back of your head, throbbing within your skull, until every fibre of your being is Perceived and Known.)</p><p>The world has ended, and a part of Jon ended with it.</p><p>That’s not such a terrible thing, by now. He has been losing pieces of himself, he now realizes, ever since he was eight years old, holding a book bound in spider silk and horror in one hand and reaching out to knock with the other.</p><p><em>Mr. Spider wants more,</em> croons Jon’s memory as he and Martin march hand-in-hand across an earth-bound hellscape. Mr. Spider wanted more, his friends from uni wanted more, Georgie wanted more, Jared Hopworth and Jude Perry wanted more, Jane Prentiss wanted more, Tim and Sasha <em>deserved</em> more, and fucking Jonah Magnus took more than Jon should <em>ever</em> have been able to give, and sometimes it feels as though there is nothing left in himself for Jonathan Sims to call his own.</p><p>(Martin — oh, sweet, gentle Martin, more weathered than anyone that kind should ever be — understands this, and will never ask for more than Jon can handle, will sit at his side and brush the hair from his face as he shudders and quakes under the gaze of that horrible, lidless eye, content to establish boundaries and abide by them, to hold Jon’s scarred hand and simply <em>be.</em>)</p><p>“I don’t deserve you,” Jon whispers brokenly to him, as they huddle inside an abandoned farmhouse, seeking a brief respite from the ceaseless wail of the Slaughter’s bagpipes and bombshells and the words that rise unbidden in Jon’s throat like searing, choking bile.</p><p>“We didn’t deserve a lot of things that happened to us,” Martin tells him. He presses a gentle kiss to his temple, holds Jon closer. “But they still happened, didn’t they?”</p><p>That’s not the end of it, Jon knows — because he is a monster, and Martin deserves so much better than a monster like him, a monster who shattered the world — but it is enough for now.</p><p>The bagpipes drone on, fading into the distance as they finally stumble onwards in their quest.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The world has ended, but still it carries on.</p><p>(They put it back.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The apocalypse comes to an end like this:</p><p>Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, the Archivist and the Archive, the man who ended the world, stands before Jonah Magnus atop the great Panopticon, and brings down the knife he and Martin hold braced and sweat-slicked between them.</p><p>It is bloody and messy and imperfect, and Jon is still oh so marked by so many of the Fears. Healing takes time and some scars never fade, and maybe the world will take even longer than Jon to recover. (Perhaps it never fully will. Perhaps there will always be more spiders than there ought to, perhaps bagpipes will still drift on a distant breeze with the bitter tang of blood, perhaps the sun will sometimes still flicker as though it is blinking. Who can say?)</p><p>Thousands have died, and thousands more are still haunted and hollow from the horrors they endured, but reality is no longer warped and bulging at the bidding of Fear.</p><p>There is no bringing back Sasha or Tim or Gertrude or Gerry. There is no undoing the trauma of the past five years, no way to take back the pieces of themselves they all sacrificed. Melanie will never see again, and Daisy will always be sickly and wan. But they succeeded, and now they will try to live.</p><p>The world ends, and then it doesn’t, and what can come after the end of the world?</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>(Healing.)</p><p>(Laughter.)</p><p>(Sleep not spent wandering the nightmares of a hundred weary souls.)</p><p>(A thousand moments stolen in the quiet of the morning, over a cup of tea, in a quiet cafe, waving to the cows in a sun-bathed Scottish field.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Before they leave London, the former Archivist and his sole assistant return to the Magnus Institute. They descend the cramped staircase to the cool blackness of the Archives, and then they stand, hand in hand, in the dark for a minute — or perhaps a decade — before Martin flicks the light switch.</p><p>For the place that was very nearly ground zero for the apocalypse, the Archives look remarkably intact. In fact, Jon realizes with a pang, they look to be in a similar state of disarray to when he first took on the job of head archivist, half a decade ago. His throat constricts at the thought, and Martin must sense it too because his hand tightens around Jon’s, calloused and warm and reassuring.</p><p>They stand, hands clasped, shoulders brushing, and gaze around at the abandoned room, strewn with files and papers, brimming with the presence of lost friends but so utterly devoid of life. Tim and Sasha should be here, bantering and mock-groaning as they sort files and tease Martin and try to badger Jon to come out for drinks after work. Melanie should be slouched in the corner, waiting for Georgie and ready for any opportunity to argue. Daisy and Basira ought to be pushing through the door, comfortably knocking elbows, ready to shoot down any idiotic plan Tim and Melanie and Jon have cooked up. (Gerry should be here, wiping any trace of Leitner ashes off the desk and not having to worry about his murderous mother.)</p><p>But none of them are, and Jon can’t help but be grateful, however morbid it may be, that wherever his compatriots, his former or dearly departed friends may be, it is not within the walls of the Magnus Institute.</p><p>He turns, hand still securely grasped in Martin’s, and walks away.</p><p>They don’t bother to turn out the light.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The tape recorders still appear from time to time, persistent as dandelions cropping up in a back garden no matter how many times you weed it, but it doesn’t bother them as much as Jon might have thought. Martin chuckles about “lo-fi charm” and records his poetry on them, and Jon listens to it as he washes the dishes, ignoring Martin’s red face and stuttered objections every time. Jon suffers through a collection of Keats and fervently swears <em>never again</em> up and down, and Martin sits through a performance of <em>Hamlet</em> because Jon asks him to.</p><p>Jon only takes pictures on Polaroid cameras, Martin makes tea and cooks vegetarian meals for both of them, they go for long walks and point out good cows, and they never, ever buy canned peaches.</p><p>The world has ended, and begun again, and they are finally learning how to live.</p><p>They are not okay. The world is still riddled as many cracks as Jon has scars from being put back together. But it is only the world’s beginning — <em>their</em> beginning — and maybe they will be okay someday.</p><p>For now, it is enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Find my perpetually angsty ass on <a href="https://zannolin.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/zannolin">twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/zannolin/">instagram</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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